By now, you should know that anytime you see Binance, the CBN, Forex, and Naira all in one sentence, it’s hardly for good. This is another scenario.

These past few weeks, the Nigerian Naira has seen a very huge decline in value, probably one of the fastest ever experienced. It’s almost like the value keeps depreciating every 24 hours. Citizens of the country, fed up with the ugly situation, have turned to cast the blame on the people’s favorite exchange - Binance.

The story unfolds:

P.S: I’m not giving any personal take, I’m simply curating various opinions.

About a week ago, the rate of $1 to naira was between NGN1400 - NGN1500. Just yesterday, it saw a maximum gap in value decrease as it was observed to be trading at NGN1800/$1, which was a huge increase from the NGN1740 it traded the night before. Simply put, the naira is experiencing its all-time low. This constant decline in value affects the average Nigerian life in many ways. The prices of commodities within the country have spiked drastically, even traders with old stocks of goods are selling under the new dollar rate.

As though someone lit fireworks, blame has been flying around. Like Sherlock Holmes, Nigerians have worn their capes in search of the true cause of this. Binance seems to be the most favored amongst others as the exchange has once again found itself in the headlines of Nigerian newspapers.

According to unnamed individuals with knowledge of the policy option who spoke to the PREMIUM TIMES - one of Nigeria’s most popular newspapers, the Nigerian government is thinking of shutting down Binance to stop what it views as ongoing manipulation of the foreign exchange market.

This isn’t the first time the exchange has been accused of this. Similar charges against Binance of manipulating currencies and engaging in unethical behavior have resulted in sanctions in other nations and an ongoing legal dispute in the US.

According to regulatory and presidential officials in the country, the government is taking action against Binance P2P after learning of allegations that traders used it for price manipulation and money laundering. This isn't the first time a move has been made to stop Binance P2P trading in Nigeria, a similar event occurred late last year. There’s a wide belief that people’s speculation on the foreign exchange rate of NGN-USDT on Binance P2P is what is affecting the rate nationwide. This led to the call for the stop of P2P trading of naira on Binance; a move that seemed to have taken effect as of last night.

An effect of this? Traders have moved to other platforms and were selling for rates even higher than NGN1800 per dollar.

Well, this morning, NGN-USDT P2P trading on Binance is back, and guess the rate? NGN1880/$1 (as of the time of writing).

In an official statement by Binance as they advised the community to ignore the fud, the company asserts that P2P trading is still functional and shouldn't be regarded as the cause of the naira fall. The company stated that the continuous fall of the value of naira isn't caused by the platform as the rate simply follows the demand and supply of the official market. "Binance provides a P2P marketplace, not as a price discovery platform," the statement points out.

The statement mentioned that Binance has good measures in place to protect users and the brief pause of its P2P trading feature for NGN-USDT was to adjust to the significant currency movement.

Another school of thought is that the country’s apex bank, the CBN is colluding with Binance P2P to manipulate the price of the exchange market. Meaning, people believe that these P2P traders are not working alone. There’s more to be said about this but enough has not yet been brought to light.

Basically, the country’s currency is in “deep shit” and there hasn’t been an actual plan to rectify it. With the way things are going, Nigeria might soon experience what ZImbabwe experienced in terms of currency failure. I wrote a piece some days back about hyperinflation, and dollarization in Africa, you can read here to understand more about what happened to the Zimbabwe's original currency and how the naira is taking the same path.